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Oddball events animate Frozen Dead Guy Days in Nederland

Coffin race, salmon toss, live music part of Grandpa Bredo celebration

By Christy Fantz

Staff Writer

Posted:
03/09/2017 03:12:48 PM MST

Updated:
03/09/2017 05:20:51 PM MST

Steve Maltz, left, with Team Clown high-fives children during the Frozen Dead Guy Days coffin parade last year in Nederland. The quirky annual festival kicks off today. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

Nederland's infamous Grandpa has Hollywood carved all over his cold, hard body.

Blend one-part camp, a dash of sci-fi, two parts drama, a hefty pour of comedy and a corpse in a rocks glass, salt the rim and ... voila: It's one juicy plot that makes "Twin Peaks" look stable.

Strange, yeah? Wait until they open the freezer.

There was the alleged punch heard around town, the ordinance banning dead bodies and a couple of lapsed visas.

Weird story short: Nederland's biggest star is Norwegian Bredo Morstoel, who died in 1989, but still lives in the hills of the mountain town. He was soaked in liquid nitrogen for years after his death and he now literally chills out in a Tuff Shed in the hills of Ned. His daughter and grandson, Aud Morstoel and Trygve Bauge, respectively, employ resident Brad Wickham to pack fresh dry ice on Gramps each month, now that they live in Norway.

Grandpa inspired the quirky mountain town's famous festival, Frozen Dead Guy Days — which will celebrate its 16th annual wacky weekend party starting at 4 p.m. on Friday, March 10. There will be the famous Coffin Races, a costumed ball, bowling with frozen fowl, a polar plunge and deep-fried testicles. New this year is Sunday's Rise from the Dead Fat Bike Rally — a mile race around town to add a "sports-oriented" addition to the festival, said festival owner Amanda MacDonald. Also new this year, Grossen Bart Brewery partnered with the festival to create a pale ale just for Gramps. It's called Bredo's Brew.

The festival will also feature three music tents with more than 30 bands throughout the weekend — a $10 wristband provides access to all.

MacDonald, who also serves as event coordinator for Frozen Dead Guy Days, said the festival's stature as a world-renowned spectacle grows every year. It caught the eye of PBS and Travel Channel this time around — "Wild Travels" and "Booze Traveler," respectively, will be filming at the festival over the weekend.

Bo Shaffer places a framed photo of Bredo Morestol, who is preserved in dry ice in a Tuff Shed in Nederland. (File photo)

On a local angle, the festival's parade coordinator, Teresa Crush-Warren, along with three local pals, are creating a TV pilot, "Frozen Dead," a dark comedy which will also be filming footage at the festival. (Plus, MacDonald noted, the rapper Bizarre, from Eminem's Detroit hip-hop group D12, will be around.)

Details aside, back to the juicy plot.

Grandpa grandfathered

The Morstoels drove through Nederland in the early-'60s while touring the United States, said Crush-Warren, which she said probably prompted grandson Bauge to return.

"The house he built here in Nederland is a fortress," Crush-Warren said, noting its thick structure and security bars. "Trygve was sure there was going to be a nuclear disaster, so he wanted to build a strong house that would stand.

"He was an interesting character."

After Morstoel soaked in liquid nitrogen for years in California, Bauge and his mother Aud brought Grandpa to Nederland in 1993, tossed him on some dry ice and secured him in Tuff Shed out back of the fortress, where he still chills.

Aud and Bauge, advocates for cryonics, had plans to start a frozen facility of their own. And that's when things started getting weird. (Because freezing a corpse in hopes of its return isn't.)

Aud went into town to obtain a certificate of occupancy after she was evicted for living in an unfinished home with no electricity or plumbing, when she spilled the beans to a local reporter that she was housing a dead body.

"The police drove up there and, in 1994, the story broke nationally that Nederland had a frozen, dead grandpa in town," said Crush-Warren. "Since then, the family has been paying someone to keep Grandpa on ice."

This prompted Nederland to add a provision to its code prohibiting dead bodies on any property. However, dear old Grandpa Bredo was exempted under a grandfather clause.

"To this day, there's still an ordinance in Nederland that we can't have frozen bodies," Crush-Warren said.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'll get in trouble for having chicken in my freezer, because it doesn't specify 'human' bodies," she said, laughing.

Trouble in town

A coffin race team marches during the parade at Frozen Dead Guy Days last year in Nederland. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

Thus, the bizarre Frozen Dead Guy Days was born in this zany town. However, in the beginning, Crush-Warren said Aud was upset that the town was making money from the festival and not sharing the wealth, "which wasn't true," Crush-Warren said.

"That year I was assaulted by Aud, the daughter of Grandpa Bredo," said Crush-Warren. "She came up to me at a restaurant in town and hit me. But then we realized later she was off her meds at the time."

"She punched her," said MacDonald, in a separate interview. "I was there."

Bauge was deported in 1994 for overstaying his visa. Aud continued care for Grandpa until she was deported soon after her son.

In stepped the caretakers, the "icemen": Bo Shaffer kept Grandpa cold for years and the torch was recently passed to Wickham.

And Frozen Dead Guy Days, cryonics' first Mardi Gras, honors Grampsicle for the 16th time this weekend with a slew of unorthodox partying.

"Nederland is such a unique and quirky place," said MacDonald. "People come up here and find their home here. It's very accepting of all different types and walks of life. They embrace the unique here, and always have."

The frozen dead, too. Nederland definitely operates in a class all its own.

"Maybe it's that Nederland is sitting under the Continental Divide," said Crush-Warren, who has lived in Ned for 35 years. "Maybe it's the wind. Maybe it's that it's really winter up here when it's winter. Whatever it is, it definitely separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. Take that as you may.

"And we will definitely always have characters that surface to the top."

Festival highlights

FRIDAY

The Blue Ball: A night of dancing, an Ice Queen and Grandpa Bredo look-alike costume contest and music to the theme, "A Legendary Evening."

"We've lost so many people in our generation recently, so we'd like to honor the legends and icons," said Teresa Crush-Warren, the festival's parade coordinator, who said she'll dress as Debbie Reynolds."I'm sure there will be some Princes Leias running around," honoring the late-Carrie Fisher. 4 p.m.-1 a.m.; ReAnimate Yourself Tent at Guercio Park; $20

SATURDAY

Parade of Coffin Racers & Hearses: Crush-Warren said she's arranged for 20 antique Colorado hearses to join the parade. There will be floats and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, too. Noon; begins at Teen Center and heads west on First Street

Coffin Races: The coffin race, with a "corpse" in tow, pits participants against each other as they race through a course full of obstacles. Amanda MacDonald, the festival's owner, said this is one of her favorite events. "It's funny, people are stumbling over coffins that fall apart. It's super fun, everyone just really enjoying themselves." 2-3:30 p.m.; Guercio Field

Snowy Human Foosball: Like it sounds. Like it looks. Maybe after beers for breakfast, obviously. 1 p.m.; Guercio Field; $30 per team

Bring Out Your Beards: It's Colorado, you craft-beer swigging hipsters (said with pure love). Show off your facial hair at the beard and mustache contest; 1-2 p.m.; First Street across from Brain Freeze Tent

Rise from the Dead Fat Bike Rally: New this year, MacDonald said bikers make laps throughout the town in a one-mile race. "It's a nice addition for a sports-oriented event to the festival." 1-3 p.m., $25 registration

• The Newly Dead Game Does your partner want to be laid to rest six feet under? Or do they want to be jammed in a fancy urn? How well do you know your partner? 1 and 5 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday; Black Forest Restaurant

There will be a silent disco with DJs Gangsterish and Sassfactory, along with more than 30 bands in three heated tents. A $10 wristband provides access to all three music tents on Saturday and Sunday. Live music from: The Last Revel, Dragondeer, Gasoline Lollipops, The Zimmermans, Whiskey Blanket, The Alcapones, Strange Americans, Tribe, Whitewater Ramble, Peak 2 Peak, The Farmer Sisters, Haymarket Squares, The Jauntee, 300 Days, Galvarino, Patrick Latella, The Whisky Charmers, Fox Feather, Nederland All Star Band, The Railsplitters, Great American Taxi, Judge Roughneck, Highway 50, Hot Soup, Atomga, Onda, The Sweet Lillies, Dana Kyle Stokes, beautyofmyland and Last Minute. Full schedule: frozendeadguydays.org/music-schedule

Bredo's Brew

Grandpa Bredo Morstoel, who is chilling in a Tuff Shed under dry ice in Nederland, now has his own beer. Frozen Dead Guy Days and Grossen Bart Brewery teamed up to create Bredo's Brew. At 5.6 percent alcohol-by-volume, the pale ale was brewed with Viking Pale Malts and Dr. Rudi, Cascade, Ella and Topaz hops, which the brewery says on its website, gives the beer a citrus and tropical explosion of flavor.

Nederland's Municipal Code, Section 7-34

"Keeping of bodies," outlaws the keeping of "the whole or any part of the person, body or carcass of a human being or animal or other biological species which is not alive upon any property."

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